It's irrelevant what you or I think about gay marriage. The truth is that a majority of Californians voted not to allow gay marriage right now. That means that Miss California's position wasn't radical or unusual. On the contrary, it represents the MAJORITY OPINION. Her answer was also phrased nicely so as not to offend people. ... She has been discriminated against for her beliefs, that is unconstitutional. And I guarantee you that if there were some kind of situation where someone was FOR gay marriage, and THAT made them lose the competition or hinder their chance, you'd have mobs of angry screaming protesters in the streets.

That California girl reminds me of that Florida girl (and her organge juice) who drove a gay rights ballot out of contention in Miami. Both these ladies, given their need to have gay hair stylists, gay makeup artists, and gay styled fashions will suffer their own popularity.

It's irrelevant what you or I think about gay marriage. The truth is that a majority of Californians voted not to allow gay marriage right now. That means that Miss California's position wasn't radical or unusual. On the contrary, it represents the MAJORITY OPINION. Her answer was also phrased nicely so as not to offend people. For her political beliefs to make her lose the competition, or even to affect the results, is not only disgusting but essentially a criminal act. She has been discriminated against for her beliefs, that is unconstitutional. And I guarantee you that if there were some kind of situation where someone was FOR gay marriage, and THAT made them lose the competition or hinder their chance, you'd have mobs of angry screaming protesters in the streets.

In conclusion:
- The panel was terminally stupid for even asking that question
- Any judge swayed by some beauty pageant contestant's opposing political beliefs should be permanently banned from judging
- Perez Hilton should crawl back until the slimy rock he came from

and lastly:

- Pageants are stupid.

I highly doubt that Miss California's political (or to be more accurate, moral) beliefs made her lose the competition. Beauty pageants are so arbitrary anyways (if you believe in the gossip, many of the results are determined before the night the pageant), and besides, Miss California is actually being praised for her views by many. For example, she is being featured in the National Organization for Marriage's ads against same-sex marriage, and has emerged as a young, attractive face for the movement against same sex-marriage.

In short, there is little evidence of Miss California actually being discriminated for her beliefs--unless you count Perez Hilton's complaints about her on his blog. Miss California has every right to publicly voice her beliefs, but Perez has every right to publicly disagree with her--even if he does it in an extremely immature way. This is free speech, after all, is it not?

Personally, my issue with Miss California is not with her moral beliefs per se, but rather how ignorant she seems about the issues surrounding same-sex marriage. If you watch the other interviews she gives, she appears to know nothing about same-sex marriage at all apart from saying that it's wrong.

It's very hard for anyone to argue against same-sex and seem ignorant because of how you have to phrase the argument just to get someone to listen... political correctness, I think, stunts a lot of debate because of the fear of offending.

political correctness, I think, stunts a lot of debate because of the fear of offending.

Political correctness is just about the polar opposite of free speech. Read '1984', anyone who hasn't. It was written by a liberal, I believe, if that helps any liberals to accept its message. If only we had more "liberals" like that today. The human race has never really achieved free thought and free speech. I think we might have peaked somewhere in the 80's. We're definitely on a downward trend since then. But the media (the ones who enforce the control of accepted speech and thought) won't be the ones to confirm that for you.

Political correctness is just about the polar opposite of free speech. Read '1984', anyone who hasn't. It was written by a liberal, I believe, if that helps any liberals to accept its message. If only we had more "liberals" like that today. The human race has never really achieved free thought and free speech. I think we might have peaked somewhere in the 80's. We're definitely on a downward trend since then. But the media (the ones who enforce the control of accepted speech and thought) won't be the ones to confirm that for you.

I would hesistate before deeming Orwell's Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four an imminent consequence of political correctness today--Newspeak is a very extreme example. And to be honest, I think many accusations of political correctness merely serve a straw man arguments against certain ideas.

Even if we accept that political correctness is pervasive, I doubt that the language some people would use to describe what they see as less-than-desirable behavior by gay people (if not for political correctness) would add much to any informed debate about the issue of same-sex marriage.

And really, anyone who's read Nineteen Eighty-Four and takes it to heart would probably be for same-sex marriage, given that sexual repression (or more precisely, the evils of sexual repression) is a major theme in the book.

It's a satire and well written. It just opens ones eyes the same as Gulliver's Travels which really was making idiocy out of royalty. Do read 1984 and also Animal Farm just to have your eyes opened and not put down by the reasons in the above post.

I would hesistate before deeming Orwell's Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four an imminent consequence of political correctness today--Newspeak is a very extreme example. And to be honest, I think many accusations of political correctness merely serve a straw man arguments against certain ideas.

I agree. I also come to issues of political correctness from a somewhat unique perspective. When I first came to this country from Russia, political correctness shocked me. I was used to be people being far more sincere, and so the American way as hypocritical. Having lived in this country for a couple of decades, though, I've really changed my mind. Political Correctness in largely the extension of general politeness. Say you step on someone's toe in a very crowded bus. In America, it's likely that you say "excuse me" and the other person also says "excuse me" (sort of like "I shouldn't have been in your way, so sorry about this"); in Russia, it's likely to be far more rude. By now, I certainly prefer the American way.

Also, there are two strands of political correctness - one about what we speak about and another about how we speak about it. The latter I consider good for reasons stated above. The former is, indeed, evil. Scientists who are afraid to publish studies that might point to gender or - even worse - race differences, for example, is just one example.

and that is what I was referring to. PC has become so extreme that you just don't know what you're allowed to say before you get labelled a bigot, or a racist, etc...

I agree with you to an extent--often, I found that people often invoke PC as the last line of argument, when they don't know to adequately respond to your point.

But is PC that pervasive in everyday media, though? The example of scientists afraid to publish certain types of studies about gender and race--those still do get published and discussed. For example, I remember reading a news article recently discussing a study in which two scientists concluded that Jews were the most intelligent people. However, studies like these do get criticized, not necessarily on the grounds that they are un-PC, but because they are often scientifically unsound.

I think a tempered form of PC has some use in everyday life--after all, it can shut the real bigots and racists up. Extreme PC, though (as Ray Bradbury would argue) should definitely be frowned upon--but then again, extremism in the majority of things in life is not exactly desirable.